Protecting Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe: What next?

Regulatory and non-regulatory mechanisms, new institutions, cooperative frameworks, HUBs, toolkits, manuals, online courses or trainings. Since 2015, a plethora of initiatives on a local, regional, national, as well as the EU level have been implemented to hamper the spread of disinformation, AI-powered manipulation, hate speech and other forms or harmful content that disguises and misinforms citizens. Central and Eastern Europe has been hit particularly strongly with these phenomena, often defining social, political, as well as foreign policy paths of specific countries. It is a region, in which many societies suffer from the lack of quality education equipping citizens with critical thinking, that has been hit hard by the Kremlin hybrid influence, but also a space where courage, determination and cooperation led to impactful change towards resilient democracy. Over 10 years into recognizing that malign influence and harmful, manipulative content are key challenges democracies face today, where is the expert community at? What are the frameworks that, so far, worked best in short, mid, and long-term for Central and Eastern Europe and what strategic vision can we bring on the national and regional level to the next decade, still heavily influenced by the efforts trying to undermine key democratic pillars?